


Being Seen, Being Heard

by itsady



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29725794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsady/pseuds/itsady
Summary: Gideon comes out as a woman to Harrow. Things go both worse and better than expected.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31





	Being Seen, Being Heard

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-canon, and hopefully lore compatible, though I did read this book spread out over like a month. Hopefully the important parts stuck! Anyways, I wrote this because I have to rub my grubby little trans hands all over everything I love, and Gideon? I love that bitch.

Today’s the day you’d tell her.

Once and for all, you’d have her hear you out. You were riding high off the adrenaline of a morning’s hard training; your muscles sore in that nice, floaty way; your two-hander glistening in the corner by the light of the sunrise peeking into your quarters.

There was a shaky peace to it all, made less peaceful by your own shaky breathing. You felt like a ball of energy, stored, and that if anything pushed you in any direction, you might just bounce around the room all day and night. It had to come out—out of your mouth—to her, whether she wanted to listen or not.

Today, the Reverend Daughter would hear you, and you’d make damned sure of that.

* * *

It took only about ten minutes of telling yourself that to get your ass off the end of your bed. Jotting that down as a positive in all this, you stepped out of your quarters and into the full brunt of the morning light.

The halls of Drearburh were markedly emptier than usual. The skeletons which usually filled the halls on a morning like this were few and far between. Somehow, that only intensified the feeling of their empty eye sockets boring holes into your back. In any number, the skeletons disquieted you, and not many things could claim that badge of honor from a stoic ass like yourself living on a rock like this.

You passed sanctuary, the early birds feeding in. Plenty of skeletons already filled the hall, because skeletons have nothing better to do than to be early to things, you thought. You kept on.

Harrow’s quarters weren’t far—everything the nobles did was sanctuary adjacent, centrally located, god forbid they should have to break a sweat walking—so you climbed a few staircases and made your way to her door.

And stood.

And stood, and stood, and stood. Thank fuck nobody comes up here, lest you be seen standing around the Reverend Daughter’s door, occasionally lifting your hand to the knocker and immediately putting it back the fuck away at your side, where it can’t get you into any of the damned trouble you’re trying to start.

Fuck it. You Knock.

There’s a barely noticeable, and yet unmistakably  _ Harrow _ sigh, followed by shuffling.

And then she’s there. The door’s thrown open, and staring you down in her muster best is she, the Reverend Daughter, Harrowhark  _ fuckin’ _ Nonagesimus. Her nose curls up at you, as if on instinct, and she weaponizes the hairbrush in her hand to gesture at you.

“Griddle, I’m quite obviously busy, so whatever nonsense you have planned for the purpose of ruining my morning, I’ll kindly have you take it elsewhere.”

“Nonagesimus, look, hang on, I—”

“I’m truly not in the mood, Nav”

“Look, please don’t do this, just this one time would you let me get a word in edgewise, I swear to—“

“Fine. Talk.”

That wasn’t it. But you were getting somewhere. “Not just in the hall like this. I need to talk to you, but it’s not trivial and I want you to hear me out.”

The Nonagesimus sigh again, this time in full force, mere feet from your face. She really wasn’t making this easy on you. But then, you never expected any different.

Harrow spun on her heel. She marched back into her quarters, and after a beat, without turning back, spat out, “get in here and shut the door, I haven’t got all morning.” You complied.

You’d been in this room before, but it always made you feel out of place. Maybe that was from all the times you’d been explicitly told by various members of the nobility and their staff that you didn’t belong there? Could be that. Probably that, yeah.

And now, as you entered the threshold, you locked eyes with the other person in the room. Aiglamene sneered at you. “What business does that child have here?” she asked, not breaking your stare.

“Here for a talk,” said Harrow. “And as we well know, I am quite the accommodating host.” A moment of dead air. “You may go.”

Aiglamene looked at a loss, just for a moment, before broodingly sweeping past you to the door. From behind you, she put the knife in. “Watch him.”

A searing pain shot through your head, tracing the bumps in your brain like lightning through a tree stump. You’d die here, they’d cut you open, and say, “Hey, look at that. That’s precisely where and how Gideon Nav was fucked in the head.”

It’s not like it was something new to be called  _ him _ , and hurt by it. Well, maybe newish. In truth, there was a sliding scale of realizing how fucked it felt to be seen that way. But that’s a conversation for another time.

No, it was that it was happening now. All that adrenaline from a moment ago twisted into fear, into  _ this was a mistake _ , into wanting to turn tail and run. The moment had soured.

“I— uh,” you choked out. You realized you were looking at the ground. You looked up.

Harrow sat in a regal chair that functioned as the centerpiece of the room. You might as well call it a throne, for just how damned regal and central it happened to be. Her unearned confidence did not go unnoticed, and you wished you could borrow a bit just for today, just to get this off your chest.

“I need to—” you started again. Nothing followed.

Harrow snipped at you, “What. What is it that you want, what is it that is so damned important that you have wasted so far”—she checked the time on the wall—“a good five minutes of my time, just standing around stuttering like a fool. Out with it. What.”

“I need to talk to you—”

“You said that,” mused Harrow, almost bored in her annoyance.

“LOOK, I” and then you choked, and then the tears were in your eyes. They came so fast. You looked down in shame, looked up to blink them away, neither helped. You wanted to run, to get the fuck out of this joke of a bright idea you’d had this morning, but you’d probably just run into a wall and pass out for how well you could see right now, which, right, the tears.

You didn’t cry. You never cried. Maybe that time you twisted your ankle real bad, but that wasn’t this. You wept, now, half crouched to the floor. Your head burned like a hot poker was being driven through it. Why? Why was it all coming down now? Why were you, resident stoic ass of this rock, falling apart like this?

You wiped at your eyes, fruitlessly. Then you were dabbing at them with a handkerchief. That helped a bit. Wait, that wasn’t your hand, wasn’t your kerchief, what the—

“You have to breathe, Griddle.” Your newly cleared eyes looked up and found yourself face-to-tits with Harrow, which would have been a million other things if it wasn’t so warm and comforting resting your head in her chest, drying your eyes on the soft fabric of her Ninth gowns. You let yourself be okay with this for the next five minutes. Oh, and you let yourself breathe, once you remembered.

“Harrow,” you sobbed, and she shushed you. And for some reason you shushed. Your head still ached like it had had a losing battle with a sledgehammer, but you were clear. You could see, you could think, and she was taking your hand and bringing you over to sit on the edge of her bed and you could talk. At long last, you could fucking tell her.

And it just came out, like a song. How it hurt to be a boy. How deeply wrong it felt. How you never asked for this. How you looked at the girls in your comics and dreamed of being like them. How you looked at Harrow and dreamed of being like her. How no one will understand. How badly you wanted to just run the fuck away and not be seen or heard by anyone who didn’t get it, who didn’t see you the way you saw you. How that obviously fucking wasn’t an option. How that left fuck all other than be miserable, here, where nothing and no one ever changed, ever was allowed to change.

“Oh, Griddle, how you underestimate me,” sang the Reverend Daughter. She let the confusion wash over you for a moment, then she continued. “I have every string holding this place together in the palms of my hands. You think I can’t rewrite a little history? Please.”

“I, wh—”

She stood. She walked to the doorway. “It’ll be taken care of. You have my word. Now, I have muster to be seen at, and when I get back, I expect that this room will be vacated.”

* * *

It was five days later that you overheard Aiglamene call you  _ she _ . Maybe Harrow wasn’t such a miserable bitch after all.


End file.
